Friday Poll: What's the Longest-Running Ad on Your Station?

    • 1373 posts
    March 21, 2013 9:08 PM PDT

    Happy Friday, everyone!

    Here is this week's poll question:

    What is the longest-running spot you’ve had on your station?  What type of business is it for?

     

    And we hope you’ll not only tell us about your ads, but also post the sound files, so everyone can give them a listen!  (Just click the "Upload Files" link below the reply window.)

    • 1 posts
    March 22, 2013 6:32 AM PDT

    When I tell people about this advertiser they typically say, "What?!...", but this is a testament to sticking with it and after while, people just know who you are - talk about frequency.  Absolutely Cabinets is a very small, one man operation that sells cabinets in the low to mid-range price point and has access to higher lines when needed. His customers are fix and flippers, income property owners, and do-it yourselfers.

    Orin, the owner, has been advertising on our News/Talk station for almost 10 years! He has a very consistent schedule of about 15 spots/week and if we have special events, i.e. Morning Show went to Tampa for Republican Convention, he always signs on to have "this portion of...is brought to you by..."

    Now, here's where it gets crazy...He has never been to our studios....He voices his own spots by calling in to our production studio by phone.  There's no fancy slogans - just plain old Orin followed by a "big voice tag" at the end.

    I can almost certainly guarantee that every single one of our P1's can tell you his name, what he does, and how to find him.  I don't think there's a single station event that happens where someone hasn't come up to me and asked some question about Orin.

    Give Orin a listen...here's his newest spot that started airing this week. Enjoy! We love him!

    • 2 posts
    March 22, 2013 7:13 AM PDT

    Great story. I really like hearing about simple straight forward ads that work.

    • 34 posts
    March 22, 2013 11:29 AM PDT

    I love the Andy Griffith whistle....so iconic.

     

    We have a tire & auto repair chain called Perfection Tires on  and he has done the SAME ad for 2 years.  I always ask him if he wants to change it up, but he refuses.  He says that ad is the best ad he's ever ran, and he still gets people in.  It's called "We Can Fix It" and it lists off lots of things you wouldn't expect a tire store to fix like belts, engine, etc.

     

     

    • 455 posts
    March 22, 2013 2:30 PM PDT

    We have a music show here in town that has used the same full sing jingle for years. Basically, the name of the show and the number to call for tickets...all sung. Funny, catchy and almost everyone in town can sing it to you.

    • 993 posts
    March 22, 2013 8:02 PM PDT

    Unquestionably the longest running ad on our local staitons would be the Myers Auto Rebuild full-sing :30-second jingle (attached below).  I wrote the lyrics, the jingle company wrote the tune and hired the singer, who also happened to be a national voice for Chevy trucks that year.

    This spot has been airing on a daily basis for nearly 20 years, remarkable longevity from my perspective. To the best of my knowledge, in all this time no one at the station or the body shop has ever fielded a negative comment from a listener saying he or she was tired of hearing it.  It's done a great job of branding the business and keeping them top-of-mind.

    Steve and Theresa Myers, owners of the shop, have lots of stories about other people singing the jingle - buses full of school kids on their way to a game, that sort of thing.  My favorite is one about a competitor calling them to "complain" about the jingle; he felt compelled to express his begrudging admiration because his own kids had started singing it.

  • March 23, 2013 10:52 AM PDT

    I once had a guy on the air in Maryland during my entire 2-year tenure at the station.  BUT...I once heard, from my G.M., about a client on the air at his former station in rural Georgia.  A well-digging company had run one spot/day in equal daypart rotation, for about 20 years.  Focus groups had revealed that county residents could not even name another well-digging firm in their area, even though the station's advertiser was neither the biggest nor the oldest one in that market outside Atlanta.

    My G.M., Joe Beail, said that well-digging company told him that they would be on-air "til God forbid."

    There's a lesson here: High-frequency, massive exposure ("Larger than life") in the short run is not as effective, in most cases, as low-frequency, long-term exposure is ("Til God forbid") in the long run.

    Depend on it.